I (Cecil) went to San Fransisco for the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Medicine (ACOEP). This Is a meeting of all the osteopathic emergency medicine doctors in the USA.
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| Hello San Francisco |
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| Self explanatory |
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| A lot of bikes for a city! Of course the cable cars are there. It felt like I was in Auckland! |
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| Fresh oysters at Anchor Bar. |
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| Chance meetup with Bill Lee and Dr. Risavi (right) |
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| Fishermans wharf, which has some amazing seafood and restaurants. |
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| I took a tour out to Golden Gate Bridge, it was windy, but awesome! |
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| I went to the golden gate tea garden next, what an amazingly peaceful place. |
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| How I know I am back in America |
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| A really tall bridge in the gardens, I wonder if it is realistic! |
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| The dragon gate at the entrance of the China town, the second biggest china town in the states |
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| Sushi via boat. Yum yum. |
Afterwards I met up with Saad (one of the guys I went to residency with for emergency medicine in Erie, Pennsylvania ) and went to dinner. It was also game 7 of the World Series and we were watching the game during dinner. Saad was watching it on his phone, and the people next to us wanted to watch too! So we moved closer and the one guy even gave Saad his laptop to charge his phone, which was down to 1%. The game was called for a rain delay and we finished dinner and went back to the hotel. There was a huge crowd in the lobby watching the 10th inning!
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| Hanging out with Saad in China town |
The conference went well so far, but after dinner at Pacino's pizzeria (which by the way was some amazing pizza). There are some really good restaurants in New Zealand, but pizza is not their strong suit, so it was great to eat some authentic Italian pizza.
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| Warm, tasty pizza! |
By the time dinner was over it was dark, and I went back through union square, which is a gathering place for people throughout the city. They already had their Christmas tree up and had lights everywhere! union Square is also the location for the biggest Macy's in the country, six stories high and spread across two buildings. They finished an ice skating rink, and Saad and I decided to go ice skating. Mind you I have never ice skated before but I decided to go for it. I only fell once, and I didn't hurt myself... bonus! The ice skating sessions were 1 1/2 hours long, but we only skated for about 35 minutes and boy did my ankles and feet were sore!
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| Christmas time in Southern California |
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| Because this year we have been trying new things, I decided to try ice skating in Union Square |
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| Old fashioned streetcar, you could smell the pine when it brakes! |
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| Saad and I after a great meal at Tacokorea |
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| The Ghiardelli store |
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| American size portions! This was a single scoop. |
While the conference was really interesting, things were winding down. I had gotten a bunch of packages from amazon with socks, shirts and supplies of brands and items that we can't get in New Zealand. So I check out of the hotel and go to the airport at 1:30pm, I didn't get to the airport for 1 1/2 hours because of traffic from the San Fransisco marathon. I got to the airport so early for my 8:50 pm flight that. I couldn't check in! So I waited and read a book and people watched. After a few hours, I got my bags checked and got into the terminal and ate some of the best sushi I had in San Fran. I have never had to wait 40 minutes for food at a airport terminal but this place was worth it! I left on time on Nov 5th, and landed on Nov 7th in Auckland (I guess I didn't get to have a November 6th this year)
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| Really good sushi |
While Cec was in San Fran, I (Karen) was still in NZ. Serendipitously, Brenn, Molly, Leina and I all had time on our hands and no guys so we decided to have a girls weekend! We went off to a tiny surfing town called Raglan. It was made famous by a surfing movie called "endless summer". Anyway, we headed out at 8am on the 2nd and drove up. We stopped a couple times for coffee, chips (meaning French fries) and avacodes in that order. Avacodes are now in season, which is great as they are expensive the other times of the year. We did have a bonding experience as we all had to pee in the middle of nowhere, as is common in NZ, and pulled off on a side road. I even got to use my fud (she wee feminine urinary device) which everyone was fascinated with. I also got the title "trip mom" as I had a trash bag and baby wipes that everyone used. Be prepared-right? Anyway, as we I get finished a car turned on to this deserted road which was good timing or he/she would have gotten a real surprise! We got to Raglan and checked into our batch, aka seaside house, and it was beautiful. All of us had a bedroom, a leather couch and two bathrooms. Beautiful seaside views too!
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| Beautiful views! |
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| Watching the tides |
We headed into town and walked around looking for surfing lessons for the girls.... Found some too. We drove out and looked at the bay. We grabbed food, booze and then cooked in that first night. We played bananagrams thanks to Molly and watched endless summer, which is a hilarious old documentary about surfing. I fell asleep on the install comfy couches but it was good times.
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| Bay selfie! |
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| We called ourselves the raglan social club even before getting there en this lol! Boo ya! |
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| Messing around at the photo area in town. |
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| Did I mention this place was beautiful?? |
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| Bananagrams! |
The next day the girls got up super early to meet their instructor Manu and I slept in. I had gotten VERY sick the week before. Chills/Fever/cough/mucus and I was still only at like 60%. I figure that sleeping in and not surfing, as I could not take a deep breath, was a better idea. It was glorious actually..... Slept 13 hours then had a tea and sat on huge comfy leather couches watching the tides. Granted surfing was probably more fun but with how I was feeling I made the right choice. The girls got be around 2 and we hung out with the surf instructor and had lunch at a cafe, then went back and got cleaned up. We went back out and shopped some cute boutique shops and had dinner watching the sunset. We even had some locals try to pick Molly up but Leina gave the eye off lol. During dinner we also watched the police try to find ju indies who thought it would be funny to light fireworks in the Main Street, # small town problems lol. Then we went back and drank and played games and watched a comedy at I don't remember the name of. Funny stuff.
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| Lunch with the surf instructor |
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| Watching surfers |
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| Low tide |
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| Booze yeah! |
Next morning we slept in and then cleaned before having to leave. Teamwork ftw! We picked up breakfast at a cute cafe and then shopped at bit before heading out of town. We stopped at a short was called bridal veil falls. Our Portuguese surf instruct friend made this even funnier as he thought it was bridal veal and could not understand why they would name the falls after a baby calf. This made us chuckle but the falls were impressive. We did cut the walk short as it started to pour. The car ride back was good times and fun talks. I'll miss these girls more than they know.
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| With our powers combined.... Error…We got friendship bracelets |
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| Bridal veil falls |
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| Messing around at the walk |
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| I'll miss these girls |
So after Karen picks me up from the airport at Palmerston North, we stop at this quaint little restaurant we have been wanting to try for the past few months. It was a place called Viv's, and felt like a mid 60's diner. We had the famous cream horns too! And then it was back home to wanganui and a nap after the 12 hour flight.
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| What a good looking...pastry! |
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| Road sign |
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